“Beyond that. Were you to live, what would you hope might come to pass?”

“Something to happen”

So, Christmas came early for Patrick DeWitt fans with the release of his third novel, Undermajordomo Minor. The Sisters Brothers, his Booker shortlisted 2011 western put him right there on my awesome authors list. Cracking open his latest offering, I hoped against all hope that it wouldn’t be a huge disappointment.

Luckily, it didn’t even take a full chapter to set my mind at ease.

Undermajordomo Minor follows Lucy (Lucien) Minor as he spreads his 17 year-old wings and leaves the old homestead behind to see what the rest of the world has in store. In the blurb, Lucy is described as a ‘compulsive liar and a melancholy weakling’. While this is more-or-less true, he’s still a very likeable character.

In his small-town, teenage innocence, his primary goal in life is to engineer a situation in which he can point at something with a pipe. That’s not much of an aspiration, I suppose, but what more can you expect from someone who, on their deathbed, merely wishes that he wasn’t so bored.

Lucy’s exciting new life begins when he takes a job at the Castle Von Aux, as the assistant to the majordomo, Mr Olderglough. Things aren’t all sunshine and gumdrops at the castle – the Baron hides away in the daytime and prowls the halls at night, mad with heartbreak since the Baroness upped sticks and headed to the West.

Meanwhile, Lucy explores the village, becomes acquainted with the local thieves and gamblers and meets Klara, the object of his affection. That goes just about as smoothly as you’d expect and reinforces one of the themes of the book – that love is about the worst kind of torment that can befall a man.

All-in-all, I loved the book. It’s funny, but not laugh-out-loud funny; it’s fantastical, without the need for witches and goblins; and it feels like you’re being told a story. After reading a couple of what-does-it-really-mean type books, a fireside tale like this was the breath of fresh air I didn’t know I needed.

Will you like it? I can’t answer that unfortunately, but I can say that you should give it a go. Actually, what are you doing at the moment? If you can, get down to your local bookshop and read the first chapter. If you find you’re on chapter 5 before you know what’s happened, then take that bad boy home and prepare yourself for a jolly good read!

(Pay for it first, obviously)

Incidentally, if you’re in London on the 1st October, Patrick DeWitt will be appearing in Foyles on Charing Cross Road for a chat with Jessamy Calkin. You can buy your tickets here for a piddling 8 quid a pop. What else are you going to do on a Thursday evening?

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I’m not even slightly embarrassed to admit that I’ve got a penchant for global catastrophes. I’d happily stack tin cans in my bunker all day long listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor on some crackly AM radio.

So I couldn’t really say no when I read the blurb of Douglas Coupland’s Player One – a real-time 5 hour ordeal between a group of strangers in an airport lounge (of all places) as civilisation collapses outside.

I like Douglas Coupland – I always have, but like so many things, I’ve worried that I might just like the idea of Douglas Coupland. He’s that cool Canadian author that cool people talk about at cool parties (I’m sure).

There was a time when I aspired to being one of those cool people, and it’s during this period that I read Generation X (the pink paperback that sticks out amid all the other titles in the “Cult Fiction” selection of your local bookshop). That was a while ago and, with the added cynicism of years, I was open to disappointment as I cracked open Player One.

Everything worked out grand in the end because the book was fantastic!

It’s about a group of flawed people trying to figure out what to do next as everything they know collapses around them. Joni Mitchell said ‘you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone’, and it’s the sudden absence of modernity that brings its flaws and follies into stark contrast.

Player One was actually written for the 2010 Massey Lectures (an event that’s played host to people like Noam Chomsky, Doris Lessing and Margaret Atwood) and each chapter was delivered as an hour-long lecture in different Canadian cities.

The book gets a big thumbs-up from me and I’ll probably go back and read some more of Coupland’s work. I won’t even mind too much if there isn’t a massive apocalypse in the plot.

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You don’t approach a novel about 9/11 expecting giggles-a-plenty, and that’s definitely not what you get in Don DeLillo’s Falling Man. The story mainly follows Keith, an employee who manages to escape the south tower before it collapses and walks back into the home of his estranged wife and son, carrying a briefcase that doesn’t belong to him.

In a typically post-modern style, the book progresses in a series of scenes, bouncing backward and forward in time. You might like that kind of thing, but if you’re not used to it, you’ll probably find yourself rereading paragraphs with a grumpy look on your face.

For something that’s probably classed as the most dramatic event of the 21st century, DeLillo plays everything down, choosing to subtly hint at how the attack affects the characters. Then again, if you’re looking for a suspense-filled 102 minutes of terror and tragedy, that book probably won’t exist – at least not until 9/11 is seen as something that was on the news a long, long time ago.

For me, Falling Man fell a bit flat but, in fairness, my experience was spoiled a little by the occasional notes left in the margin by the previous owner. Nobody likes to be influenced by an unqualified stranger and, out of stubbornness, I refused to consider whether the third paragraph on page whatever was a meditation on the nature of identity.

So I might have deliberately missed the point.

In any case, if you’re looking around for a novel based on the 9/11 attacks, Falling Man will inevitably appear on every list you find. It’s definitely worth a read, but it’s not likely to brighten up your day.

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After enjoying the Wasp Factory and My Exploding Granny immensely, I felt I was missing a whole other side to Iain Banks – the side with an ‘M’ in it. I’m sure I’m not alone in being compelled to fill the space-opera-shaped gap in my reading list. Was it any good though? Well, yeah, it was excellent. There are still traces of Iain No-M but the environment is obviously very different from some Highland castle or coastal village.

I mean – it’s in space.

As a bookseller, I’d occasionally encounter a certain breed of reader who wouldn’t entertain or tolerate science fiction of any description. Most of these people would remain pretty rigid in their prejudices but, on more than one occasion, they could only be swayed by the Culture novels simply because Iain Banks had never let them down before.

What’s the best thing about Consider Phlebas? Well, the first thing I recall is the Vavatch Orbital. Horza, the changer (what it sounds like) and our hero moves from calamity to catastrophe and ends up falling in with a group of space-pirates. If you enjoyed Firefly, by the way, then this is definitely a book for you. This motley crew decide to pull off a bit of cosmic theft on the orbital, a huge o-ring floating in space. The orbital belongs to the Culture, a super-advanced civilization at war with the Idiran Empire, a race of almost-immortal three-legged warriors. In a kind of folly that only war can generate, the Culture are so worried that the Vavatch Orbital might fall into Idiran hand that they decide to destroy it.

Woah, woah, woah! What the hell is an orbital?!

I was thinking the same thing myself for a while before I finally worked it out. It’s pretty self-explanatory when you think about it but the sheer impossible scale of it prevents you from accepting it. The orbital is a hu-fucking-mongous circular space habitat. It’s about fifty squillion parsecs in diameter and 9 googol football pitches wide (Revision: 4.5 million km in diameter 35,000 km wide). The orbital spins in space just fast enough to mimic the effects of gravity with centrifugal force. If you’ve ever swung a bucket of water around in the name of science, then you’ll get the picture.

If, unlike me, you have the right edition of the book, there’s a picture of the orbital on the cover as a hint of what it might look like. Imagine walking around on that! You could look spinwards (?) and see what should be the horizon stretching up into the sky and somewhere, you might see a thin band of darkness on the opposite side of the ring, still enjoying their night. Maybe it wouldn’t look like that, but it’d still be cool.

That’s what stood out for me but it’s hardly the only reason to read the book. Within the classic quest-to-find-the-thing-first plot, there’s plenty of political intrigue, war, spies and violence. Also, if you like random acts of near-comic tragedy that will suck the breath out of your lungs, then Consider Phlebas should be on your to-read list. If you like the sound of that, look out for the first death on the megaship.

This new edition was published in the last month but I found out about it AGES ago. It was like the break in the fifth season of Breaking Bad. I tried to hustle an advanced reading copy, but they were having none of it. I had to wait like everyone else. With all of the anticipation, I couldn’t help wondering if Definitely Maybe could fill the boots of Roadside Picnic…

No, not that one

When I finally picked it up (from my favourite bookshop, in person), the damnedest thing happened. Every time I sat down to read it, something or someone would interrupt me. It was almost as if the Universe didn’t want me to read it. A couple of days ago, I said ‘to Hell with you, Universe’, and jumped right in.

Set in Leningrad in the 70s, the story concerns Malianov, an astrophysicist working on a thesis about how stars react to gas clouds…or something. He has sent the wife and child off on holiday so that he can get a bit of research done. When he finally sits down to work, it isn’t long before he realises that he is onto something, something big, something worthy of a Nobel Prize. But then the damnedest thing happens…

The chain of interruptions that follows leads Malianov to meet up with other professors who are experiencing similar weirdness to varying degrees of severity and in curiously individual forms. They try to find a link between their diverse fields of study and when they fail, they try getting drunk instead.

What the…?

That doesn’t work either and just as the chaos whirls to a crescendo, something really strange happens without the vaguest hint of warning. About half-way through the book, something changes, stays changed and is never explained. I don’t want to spoil it, but you can’t miss it and it’s definitely one of those rare double-take moments.

But, maybe that’s a little on the cryptic side.

not that one either

To get back to the concrete business of what the book is actually about, it’s a story about a man who accidentally stumbles across something unimaginably powerful and has to decide between realising his lifelong ambitions and losing everything he has ever loved. The story itself has the pace and the mystery of a conspiracy thriller and it’s delivered with deadpan, defeatist humour, all without losing the cloud of certain doom.

I approached this book with one question on my mind – how does Definitely Maybe compare with Roadside Picnic? They both deal with humanity’s futility in the face of unknown powers. The message in both books is clear – we are all insignificant specks in a universe that doesn’t care about us, ignorant primates who only climbed out of the trees a few thousand years ago, hopeless playthings of vastly more intelligent beings.

It’s definitely not all bad though. In the world of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, we encounter wonders equally fascinating and terrifying. Like a chimpanzee trying to work a landmine out, these alien artefacts could kill us at any moment, but we are still compelled to understand them. However, like poor Malianov, even the merest fraction of insight could come at a terrible cost.

Okay, maybe it is pretty bad, but that doesn’t change the fact that these stories are fantastic in every sense of the word. So give Definitely Maybe a go – it’s a bit left-field, a bit obscure, but you’ll read it in a couple of days…unless you get interrupted.

The Queue – Vladimir Sorokin

The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin is set in Russia as the Soviet economy is stagnating into entropy. Commodities are hard to come by so whenever something good shows up, everybody rushes to buy it. I think it used to be a kind of joke back then that anyone who saw a line of people would naturally join it. It got to the point where nobody would buy anything from a shop that didn’t have a queue outside, assuming that the shop had nothing worth queueing for. People would stand in line all day to buy things they didn’t even need and, in a lot of cases, they didn’t even have to know what was at the other end.

And such is the case in The Queue. We’re never quite sure what everyone is expecting to buy and, generally speaking, neither are they. We get the occasional hint – it’s definitely American, it could be suede, they might have them in black – but all of these clues ultimately contradict each other so (spoiler alert) you never find out what’s so damned special that it attracts over a thousand hopeful Russians.

Historical idiosyncrasies aside, the style of the novel does enough to confuse the reader by itself. I say ‘novel’, but it’s teetering on the edge of becoming a script. The book is written entirely in unallocated dialogue. As the story progresses, we leave one conversation without warning and drift into an argument further along the queue. One moment, we’re listening to two people flirting with each other, the next, someone is buying a drink from a stall. Imagine what it’s like to stand still, in the middle of the street with your eyes shut, listening to the voices passing by – that’s the best way I can describe the sensation of reading this book.

Although I found it at times disorientating, I think, as an experiment, the book is just perfect. Sorokin executes the idea with a good deal of stoic Russian humour and takes us on an almost Joycean journey through all aspects of human life. But, in my opinion, the most perfect thing about the book is its length – because, as rewarding as I found the book, I know that had it been any longer, I might well have lost my patience with it.

All that said, it’s definitely worth a go. The Queue is full of gimmicks and quirks that I’d never seen elsewhere (like leaving a number of pages blank when the characters are asleep) and it has one of the strangest sex scenes that literature has to offer.

And if that doesn’t sell it…

In closing, here’s a bunch of Soviet jokes about queueing that I found on the internet:

What is 150 yards long and eats potatoes? A Moscow queue waiting to buy meat.

Why are Russian meat shops four miles apart? So the queues don’t get tangled up.

A Soviet man is waiting in line to purchase vodka from a liquor store, but due to restrictions imposed by Gorbachev, the line is excessively long. The man loses his composure and screams, “I can’t take this waiting in line any more, I HATE Gorbachev, I am going to the Kremlin right now, and I am going to kill him!”

After 40 minutes the man returns, and begins elbowing his way back to his place in the vodka queue as the crowd looks on. They begin to ask if he has succeeded in killing Gorbachev, to which the man replies: “No, I got to the Kremlin, but the line to kill Gorbachev was far too long, so I decided to come back and wait for my vodka”.

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The Don Camillo series – Giovannino Guareschi

You know what? You should know about Don Camillo and his adversary, Peppone. Don Camillo is the Catholic priest of a little village in Italy’s Po Valley – his ‘little world’. When we first meet Don Camillo, it is in an Italy trying to find its identity again after the Second World War. The eponymous priest is himself based on Don Camillo Valota, a priest who fought the Nazis as a partisan and was detained in Dachau and Mauthausen.

The fictional Don Camillo is enormous and “about as graceful in his movements as a division of armoured cars”, with hands like shovels and size 12 shoes. His physical immensity is matched by his personality which is by turns playfully mischievous and furiously vengeful. Like all priests, he talks to Jesus and has a particularly good relationship with the crucifix in his chapel – because this Jesus talks back.

The Communist mayor of the town, Peppone, is equally Don Camillo’s bitter political nemesis and his trusted friend and the dynamic between the pair is brilliant. Don Camillo, although a man of God, is not averse to committing little sins if it means thwarting Peppone’s ludicrous, politically charged schemes. Peppone isn’t blessed with Don Camillo’s intelligence but whatever he lacks, he makes up for in a militant belief in Russia, Lenin and the People. He’s a man with big ambitions and, as the mayor of the town, a man of influence. Sure, he’s an idiotic and quick-tempered communist but he’s well liked – so he must be doing something right.

Despite their political differences, the pair have a deep respect for each other – one they unsuccessfully try to mask. In many of the stories, they have to declare a temporary ceasefire in order to look after the interests of the town and, with a duo like Don Camillo and Peppone protecting it, the town is in danger only of farce.

Written and illustrated by Giovannino Guareschi, the first of the Don Camillo stories appeared in Candido magazine, in December, 1946, a couple of days before Christmas. It was so popular that Guareschi was bombarded with letters from fans demanding that he write more.

They’re like that in Italy.

On the whole, each story involves some farcical situation, usually sparked off by the latest mischievous episode in the ongoing feud between Don Camillo and Peppone. Having been born and raised in the region, Guareschi evokes post-war rural Italy perfectly. I wasn’t around the Po Valley at the time, mind you, but you can’t disguise the genuine article.

The stories can be read individually, if you like, but they blend together quite nicely. They were first published in English by Gollancz in the 50s as gorgeous little hardbacks. They’re ridiculously hard to find but I’ve tracked down two Penguins from the 60s and 70s so they’re probably easier to get hold of.

I’ve only recently come to learn of Don Camillo and it’s a perfect example of a series I should have known about. Sadly, it has faded into obscurity a little. I think anyone who has had the pleasure would agree that these books deserve to be read by everyone.

In the 50s and 60s, a series of five films were released starring French comic actor, Fernandel in the title role. Like the books, the movies are fantastic, but a nightmare to find in the real world although you can pick them up online for a small fortune. The first movie is available on Amazon for £15-£22 but take my word for it – it’s money well-spent.

Meet Harry Christmas – an impatient, curmudgeonly Englishman with a drinking problem and a huge chip on his shoulder. After stealing some money from his girlfriend and incurring the wrath of William Slade, her psychotic stepson, Harry flees to the Venezuela – the ancestral home of his dead wife. Slade would never follow him there, would he?

Of course he would – you need some kind of unreasonable antagonist in a story such as this and they don’t get much more unreasonable than William Slade. Slade is a predatory oddball with a knife fetish and a very loose understanding of what constitutes consensual sex. When he isn’t raping or torturing, he is obsessively focussed on a single goal – killing Harry Christmas.

This spells trouble but Harry Christmas is one of those unpredictable drunks who needs no help in wreaking a havoc all of his own creation. He’s not without faults but, as the book progressed, I couldn’t help feeling a warped respect for Harry Christmas. Every now and then, he rails against ‘The Rot’ – the umbrella term for all that is wrong with the modern world and in the assault, it’s easy to find yourself agreeing with him.

But then you remember that he’s a compulsive liar and a dishonest criminal with a dark core of bitterness. We slowly discover the source of his hatred and soon realize that Harry has plenty of reasons to scorn the fates. After all, how can anyone else dare to be happy in his presence when life has dealt him such a cruel hand?

The story itself is great fun – it’s a farcical chase around Venezuela that falls somewhere between No Country for Old Men and A Confederacy of Dunces, having all of the terror of the hunt with the comedy of a despicable protagonist.

It’s not all laughs though. There are a few moments in the book that are so shockingly horrific as to leave no space for humour. I suppose this is Jasper Gibson’s way of emphasising Slade’s threat. He is a destructive sadist and the author treats us to a few scenes of his perversion. These scenes are in alarming contrast with the rest of the story and it can take a while to readjust to the humour after such a jolt.

That said, it’s still a great read with a visually-striking cover and, at £14.99, it’s a reasonably-priced hardback. It is, so far, the only offering from independent publisher, Inside the Dog Press, which is great news for all of you with anti-corporate agendas.

Jasper Gibson is the co-founder of The Poke which is a great way to waste a bit of time that would be better spent reading all of those books you have stacked up. Check out their review of A Bright Moon for Fools below…

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Yesterday morning, I picked up Naomi Alderman’s The Liars’ Gospel just to see what it was like. I had no real intention of reading it until the end but that’s exactly what I ended up doing.

Now, don’t be put off when I tell you that this is a book about Jesus. The reaction is to summon in your mind the image of some pious reflection of the life and works of God’s only son. That’s exactly what The Liars’ Gospel isn’t.

True, Jesus, or Yehoshuah, does form the epicentre around which the story unfolds but this is really the tale of the Roman occupation of Jerusalem and its brutal and bloody consequences.

The book is separated into four parts, each one a ‘gospel’ of a particular character. First, we hear the story of Miryam – you’d probably know her better as Mary. Here, the grieving mother harbours Gidon of Yaffo, a fugitive from a nearby village where a rebellion (one of many) has broken out. This rebel, little more than a teenage boy, is a follower of her son and brings news of his resurrection. As much as her heart wants to believe it, this is something she cannot accept as true.

Gidon is hungry for stories of his saviour but Miryam has none to give. However, we are treated to the tale of a strange boy who, much to his father’s (his biological father, at least) disgust, will not take a wife or otherwise behave as a man of the time should. He asks endless questions and wastes his time marvelling at nature.

Later, we feel Miryam’s sense of rejection as the adult Yehoshuah chooses a new family – his followers – and will scarcely acknowledge the one into which he was born. Despite her best efforts, Miryam cannot convince her son to return to the relative safety of his hometown and, even before he is crucified, she resigns herself to his loss.

Next up, we hear the tale of Judas, known here as Iehuda of Qeriot. One of Yehoshuah’s first followers, Iehuda watches helplessly as his old friend becomes intoxicated by the myth that has grown up around him. He can see that Yehoshuah has, willingly or otherwise, been used as a convenient tool for rebellion – a figurehead for a movement dedicated to removing the Romans from Jerusalem. The godly cause in which Iehuda once believed has become a ridiculous folly and little more than another cult.

He tries to make Yehoshuah see reason but is met with the same cryptic questions that he has come to expect. Caught in a crisis of faith and fearful for his life, Iehuda does the only thing he can and thus cements his name in history as the great betrayer. He reluctantly accepts his reward, changes his identity and allows the lie of his suicide to spread.

The third part concerns Caiaphas, the High Priest of the great Temple of Jerusalem – a figure the bible would have us believe as heartless and cynically concerned with the Temple’s financial interests. In this version, Caiaphas is a victim of circumstance. He is under pressure from Pilate to provide money for an aqueduct.

Again and again he refuses, rightly stating that the gold in the Temple’s coffers has been donated by the people for the upkeep of the Temple alone. He finally crumbles and in a risky attempt to point the finger of blame at his cruel Roman master, inadvertently instigates a riot in which hundreds of civilians are killed.

For me, the fourth and final story was the most interesting. This is the story of Bar-Avo (Barabbas), the thief, the rebel and the murderer of Roman soldiers. We hear of his rise through the ranks of the rebellion through acts of defiance and, of course, great remorseless violence. Through his bravery, he becomes notorious as a freedom fighter. He only wants to rid his land of these Roman scum an keeps the favour of the people by action, not empty rhetoric and preaching.

His fight becomes a counterweight to that of Yehoshuah’s followers. Much like Yehoshuah, we see him travelling the land recruiting men, one at a time, to the cause. Following an act of betrayal, Bar-Avo finds himself in a cell with the man proclaimed to be King of the Jews – a man he finds puzzling and disturbing. In a great scene, he uses Pilate’s vanity against him and surreptitiously negotiates his freedom.

I found this book fascinating as a piece of historical fiction. Naomi Alderman has stripped away the supernatural elements of the man we know as Jesus and portrays him as merely a man. Sure, he seems to be a man with more than his fair share of mental illness but what man is without such faults?

I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone but, having looked at some of the less-than-favourable reviews on Goodreads, it probably won’t go down too well with devout Christians. If you’re a Christian who expects their image of Christ the Lord to be reinforced by this book, I’d advise you to steer clear. If, on the other hand, you’ve got an open-mind and even a fleeting interest in Middle-Eastern history, you’ll probably be swept away.

“I’m in the Crime Reporting Office. But that’s a front. I’m actually spending my days fighting a bloody poker duel with my computer. My weapon of choice is a five-card stud.”

New translated crime, that’s what you need – and I’m only too happy to oblige. I’ve just read The Crocodile (Il Metodo del Coccodrillo), a Neapolitan crime thriller from Maurizio Di Giovanni and it’s quite something.

Detective Inspector Giuseppe Lojocano is a Sicilian cop who finds himself in the purgatory that is the San Gaetano police station in the historic centre of Naples. Caught in a scandal back home, it is decided that it would be best for everyone if he disappeared for a while.

He sits at his desk all day and plays poker on the computer and he is under strict instruction to do nothing but serve his time and stay out of the way.

It should be an easy task but the long, idle hours only give him time to mull over his predicament and consider the shame he has brought upon himself, not to mention his wife and teenage daughter to whom he has become an embarrassment and a stronzo (look it up).

By some administrative fluke, he happens to be the only person on duty one night when the call comes through – there’s been a murder – a sixteen year old boy has been found in a courtyard with a bullet hole in his head.

Lojacono is the first at the scene which irritates his chief no end and he is ordered to return to his desk. Before he leaves, he makes sure to point out a piece of evidence – a pile of used tissues.

As is the habit of the local constabulary, the murder is brushed off as the work of the Camorra – an excuse that works very well until more murdered children are found. The crimes are identical – a single shot to the head at close range from a small calibre pistol and there is one more similarity – at every scene, the killer has left behind tissues soaked in tears.

The press learn of this curiosity and the murderer is soon dubbed The Crocodile – the beast who weeps before claiming his victims. His M.O. is obviously not that of your typical camorrista and soon, the efficacy of the police investigation is called into question. Although his superiors don’t want to listen, Lojacono is the only one with a different theory and he finds himself in a race against time to find the perpetrator before more children are killed.

As Andrea Camilleri did for Sicily and Michele Giuttari did for Florence, Maurizio Di Giovanni evokes the atmosphere of Naples. A Neapolitan himself, it’s perhaps strange that he has chosen an outsider for his protagonist. Lojacono is not only a stranger, but one who sees only the dark side of Naples. He omits the vibrancy and energy of the city and emphasises the ancient air of mistrust. The city mistrusts the sea, the sea mistrusts the city, the citizens mistrust the police and pretty much everyone walks around mistrustfully avoiding each other’s gaze. Everywhere there is anger and guarded hatred and the only joyous element Di Giovanni has thought to include is the quick-fire Neapolitan wit of the characters, caught in a constant battle of playful insults.

It’s a very dark read all-in-all but an enjoyable one and although it isn’t exactly filled with surprises, the strength of the characters keeps the pages turning. I’ve personally found in Lojocano a great creation and I’ll look forward to reading more.